Honda Malaysia Honours Hardworking Malaysians

The Honda brand has been present in Malaysia for close to 60 years already, initially represented by Boon Siew Honda (motorcycles) and its sister company Kah Motor (automobiles), part of Oriental Holdings Berhad.

In 2000, Honda Motor Corporation decided to take a greater role in its growing business in Malaysia. The distribution of Honda automobiles was transferred from Kah Motor to the newly formed DRB-Oriental-Honda (DOH). Locally-assembly of Honda models however, would continue for a few more years at the Oriental Holdings-owned Oriental Assemblers plant in Johor Bahru.

By 2002, DOH was renamed as Honda Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., and vehicle assembly operations were transferred to Honda Malaysia’s own plant in Pegoh, Melaka.

It’s been 16 years since Honda Motor formally established a direct presence in our country.

Earlier last month, as part of the National Day and Malaysia Day celebrations, Honda Malaysia published a three-part series of Youtube videos honouring the contributions of hardworking Malaysians working at Honda Malaysia.

The first tells the story of Kumar, who in his own words, was just a normal mechanic before joining Honda Malaysia, where he is now the Head of Technical Specialist at the Honda Malaysia Racing Team. His fellow HMRT teammate, Kiru, is also the Sales Project Leader for the current generation Honda Civic – the point person for all things Civic in Malaysia.

The next person featured is Faezah, an engineering graduate from Japan. Provided equal opportunity by Honda Malaysia, she stands out as one of the few female engineers working in an automobile assembly/manufacturing plant.

Wrapping the three-person feature is Tee, who was one of the earliest employees of Honda Malaysia.

You might also want to read the story of Nor Hairuddin, the Malaysian chief engineer behind Honda’s SH-AWD system.